The real guardians of forests

The 2015 Global Forest Resources Assessment says that in the last 25 years the world’s forested area declined from 31.6 to 30.6 percent of the Earth’s land surface. This translates to 129 million hectares of forest almost equivalent to South Africa in size.
More worrying is that Indigenous people are often overlooked or undermined when decisions about their forests are being made. Who are the real custodians of forests, the indigenous people, the government or the corporates?